We've been having a lively discussion on a post I wrote last week, concerning, mostly, the role of police officers as agents of the state. I wanted to pull out one comment from Gino for further discussion:
oh yeah... and let's talk about 'sobriety checkpoints' that have nothing at all to do with catching drunks, and more about cops getting easy overtime pay (this is documented), and impounding cars (the city takes a share of the impound fees, documented also, that are charged by the brother of the mayor who owns the tow business...)Technically, that's not entirely right -- you are required by law to keep your registration up to date, so if you don't, you're breaking the law. But what should the punishment be? Is impounding the car a reasonable solution? And are sobriety checkpoints a false flag operation, as Gino suggests?
if yer registration is out of date, your car is impounded. if your drivers license is a day or two expired, your car is impounded. these impound fees start at over 5 Benjamins on the first day, increasing every day thereafter...
guess which class of people is further victimized by these acts?
guess which class of people routinely lobbies for such checkpoints to pad their paychecks?
these dont occur after midnight, when the drunks are on the road. they happen tween 6-9 pm, when the most cars can be stopped and impounded.
so, yeah, yer a blue collar man, struggling to make your way, lucky enough to pick up a few hours OT that day (maybe to catch up on your registration fees?)... yer the one getting popped and impounded...
by the neighborhood 'heros'... er, i mean, bullies...
and all you did wrong was drive home from work.
I would argue that impounding a car for an expired driver's license is a ridiculous punishment and it creates a lot of perverse incentives for law enforcement. I would also argue that if it's happening in California, where Gino lives, it's likely to spread to Minnesota and other states. Are you okay with that?
47 comments:
I thought there were some constitutional issues with sobriety checkpoints? And though I think it has the same constitutional problems, I personally think we should have cruisers randomly sit outside drinking establishments and wait for somebody to walk out alone, maybe weaving a bit, and get in the car. That would be probable cause to check them and would PREVENT a DWI, rather than trying to detect and punish it afterwards. It would also have a major deterrent effect, just like parking (empty) squad cars beside the road curbs speeding.
But to the question, no. I don't think it's reasonable. People forget and, though they broke the law, should be sent on their way with a warning to repair the error quickly or face a reasonable fine-- a crime, but no harm done.
No argument that California/Illinois style driver intimidation is nonsense, and no argument that we might do well to eliminate car registration and let insurance companies do drivers' licenses.
Probably more important, however, is to make clear that the laws we ought to retain--speeding, DUI, etc..--do have very real moral reasons for them. "Click it or ticket" and such make me want to knock back a few drinks and unbuckle. If we made the physical reasons clear for the laws, we'd have much better luck getting compliance.
Correct that car registration is essentially a tax scheme, especially in MN, but it does provide the basis for dealing with grand theft auto. A proper government function, but if it's your car and you've just let the registration lapse, it's not a big deal crime-- about like a burnt-out taillight, IMHO.
And I don't like making common sense a matter of law, either. But seat belts saved my life once. Making it a primary offense was the mistake, I think. If you're in an accident and not wearing one, you probably learn a lesson the hard way, and therefore we should allow the police who stop you for something else suggest you put it on. All kinds of ways these things could be made more reasonable and rational, but I don't see it happening.
the topic isn't why people dont pay their registration on time. the topic is why so many people view the cops as assholes.
and let me add to the scenario.
check point time.
driver gets arrested for whatever reason (unpaid ticket, license out of date,etc.).
a licensed passenger of said vehicle is NOT permitted to take over the wheel and drive it home.
the car gets impounded, which was the whole intent of the check point in the first place.
yes, this is how it works.
I thought there were some constitutional issues with sobriety checkpoints?
SCOTUS declared that checkpoints don't violate the 4th Amendment in 1990:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_Department_of_State_Police_v._Sitz
I happen to disagree, but that is the established precedent.
Don't even get me started on what it is like to drive within 100 miles of our southern border...
"the topic is why so many people view the cops as assholes."
Not sure I would agree with that statement of the topic, but you do identify a reasonable question. I have always assumed it reasonable that those who intentionally break the law would take that view, that the law is the "enemy." Those who unintentionally break the law, but realize they have done so, may or may not create a self-fulfilling perception with their behavior. And those who think they are being singled out unfairly, and that they are somehow entitled to break the law and get away with it, they are going to complain. None of these scenarios would put the police at fault for the perceptions of others.
So, can I ask why so many people choose to blame the police for their own misperceptions of them?
No. Ask the police why they choose to single out the powerless for enforcement. Ask why no sobriety checkpoints in the mayors neighborhood. Ask why it was necessary to do to eric garner what they did.
You know, before we claim that sobriety checkpoints are really about oppressing the common man and such, maybe.....just maybe....ask what the Pareto of citations issued for checkpoints might be? In 2002, for example, the CDC found that states with checkpoints reduced DUI by 20% more than states that did not. Overall, about 80% of the reduction in highway fatality rates since 1985 is attributable to reductions in DUI.
No argument that we could clear things up a lot, but really, that's the periphery. The core of the issue is that too many drivers, rich and poor, haven't clued in that things like insurance requirements, speed limits, and red light laws are actually related to safety, and aren't just "the man" imposing his will on us.
Bubba, none of that speaks to Gino's point. The purpose of enforcement isn't the issue; it's the practice that Gino is talking about. And he's right -- you don't see DWI checkpoints in Kenwood or North Oaks. Selective enforcement and different sets of rules are corrosive.
i'll look for a link, but generally out of 400-500 vehicles, they might come up with one DIU if they are lucky... and 10-20 impounds.
now, i'd like to see the stats for DUIs from states without checkpoints. i bet its the same, or statistically irrelevent.
but like D reminded, that wasnt the point.
As for why DWI incidences have gone down, I suspect it's multifactorial. Among the reasons:
Increased enforcement
Aging population means less partiers
Cost of alcohol, especially in bars and restaurants, has outpaced inflation, at least from what I'm able to observe
Influence of MADD and other Carrie Nation types
How we drink has changed — people who might have been pounding a six pack of cheap beer are now having 1-2 craft beers instead
Actually, the effectiveness of sobriety checkpoints has everything to do with the initial claim, which is that they have nothing to do with catching drunks. If DUI/death rates drop 20%, that means it's not justabout revenue. And why in poor areas? Well, where do you find the bars that will keep serving you when you're visibly intoxicated? Binge drinking is twice as high among the lowest quintile as among the highest.
For that matter, how much revenue is left when you've devoted a couple of squad cars and a few officers on OT and kept a tow truck on retainer? I'm guessing not much after legal fees, if any.
No fan of CA/IL style policing and the like, but it strikes me that the things were talking about are a classic example of Hanlon's Razor; never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
These checkpoints are never done with local funding, but with grants from the state. In CA anyway.
There was big stink a few yrs back when anahiems new mayor ( a liberterian) returned the money to the state that his predecessor had already accepted. The cop union threatened to remember it during the next election.
Again, I'm not going to speak for Gino. I do share his concern about policing, however. There is no question that the police make a lot of money from selling the cars they impound. There are police auctions in the Twin Cities all the time. And if police are impounding cars at checkpoints for the penny ante stuff, and I have no reason to believe Gino is not correct about this, it's a huge problem. My suspicion is that the checkpoints get placed in poorer areas because it's far less likely that a perp in the bad part of town is going to have the means to mount an adequate defense in court.
You know, if it's that big of a deal, then the numbers ought to be available, no? Let's get some.
And again, while it probably doesn't hurt that wealthier people vote and hire lawyers to keep their cars, most of the effect is simply because every ambulance driver knows where they pick up the most injured drunks.
And so you're left with a very simple question; for what crimes is forfeiture a just punishment, and are sobriety checkpoints the best way to deal with DUI? Answer that well and the problem is solved.
Personally, I would do away with forfeiture entirely, especially if it starts from a traffic stop for a broken taillight or an expired plate. As for the checkpoints, I would give them a lot of scrutiny and I would try to avoid them if possible. The key is to take the financial incentives out of law enforcement. They are public servants and need to act accordingly.
I'm still trying to figure out how we distinguish between "policing for revenue" and "fines for breaking the law." There is some legislative action to restrict asset forfeiture, which is probably a good idea, but beyond that if people break the traffic laws, what do you do except levy fines?
Jerry, fines are a different issue. The problem with the current system is that you get fined and forfeit your property. That's ridiculous.
And let's be clear about something else -- if you kill someone with your vehicle, especially if you're drunk, in my world you're absolutely going to prison and for a long time.
I'm certainly going to agree that for "victimless" or "administrative" traffic law violations (expired license or registration, etc), a fine (even sliding scale is OK with me) should be enough. For ordinary traffic laws like speeding or failure to stop completely, the fine should be enough. I'm less sure about traffic law-breaking like "reckless operation," where getting you off the road is far more likely to save somebody's life, and for DWI I think impoundment should be mandatory. I mostly hear about asset forfeiture in connection with drugs, and I don't have a lot of sympathy for that, either, but I think that's a different issue.
re do checkpoints matter?
This is quick and dirty, and not without caveats, but the simplest way to answer that question is to compare the rate of either alcohol related traffic fatalities or accidents in states with and without sobriety checkpoints. (You can't use the rate of DUI arrests because you have to assume that the presence of checkpoints affects arrest rates.) As it happens, fatality statistics are easier to come by, so I've used those. Assuming my info is up to date, 10 states prohibit checkpoints by either constitution or legislation, and AK simply doesn't use them. Unfortunately, I have no way to post a graph that summarizes this neatly, but the mean number of alcohol-related traffic fatalities (SD in parentheses) for states with and without checkpoints in 2012 was 3.7 (1.7) and 3.2 (1.3), respectively.
Notable outliers are all on the high side: MT and ND (which have checkpoints) and WY (which does not). Non-checkpoint states are distributed fairly evenly throughout the ranking, though there are slightly more in the bottom half (7/11) than in the top half (sample size is probably too small for that to mean anything.) The general geographic trend seems to be that higher urban populations have lower rates.
The most robust conclusion is that checkpoints don't impact rates. I don't think the data support concluding that they have an adverse effect despite being slightly lower in non-checkpoint states. But you will be very hard pressed to prove (with this metric) that they have a positive effect.
A better analysis would be to look at the impact in states over time following adoption of checkpoints, but someone would have to pay me to do that study.
I can't agree on impoundment and/or forfeiture, Jerry. Say you have an idiot kid (hypothetically speaking, of course) who borrows your car and gets pinched for DWI. Should you lose your car because the idiot kid was driving it? Or if you have a married couple with only one car. The husband or wife gets pulled over. Do you really want to take the car away from both of them?
You get a DWI, you should be punished, but the punishment shouldn't extend to to other people who weren't involved.
As Brian notes, the data on checkpoints is disputed; the CDC did something that said 20% lower, he just took a look and--OK, other variables exist, yes--came to a different conclusion. And to be fair, I don't know how well peer reviewed/tested/etc.. the CDC estimate is, either.
One possible way out of the conundrum is to simply admit that if there is a financial incentive to do something, it will from time to time be taken. The question is not whether it will occur, but rather how often and whether it's statistically measurable.
And that's why, again, it breaks down to something of a judgment call; is it acceptable to inflict $1000 of costs for failing to pay a $50 tax? It's worth noting that landlords have this issue as well--one friend noted that the right penalty for late payments is the one you're willing to inflict without losing sleep at night.
Applied to the police, I would come up with a second hypothesis; when fines get too high (e.g. CA/IL), the police will tend to apply them disproportionately to those not of "their tribe."
Not to put Brian (or I) out of a job, but there are some times when you don't need the statisticians, just your head.
And something of a cheap shot, but also a legitimate question; the worst examples of abuse this way are pretty liberal states. If true, why? I'm of course open to other examples, but CA and IL are the examples I know well.
"You get a DWI, you should be punished, but the punishment shouldn't extend to to other people who weren't involved."
I would agree with you for any traffic crime UNDER DWI, though I think a $1000 fine, say, is going to affect those other people in your life, too. And should make you think more responsibly as well as giving others many opportunities to REMIND you of those responsibilities. But for DWI, I think the purpose is to threaten that "$20,000 fine" to cause you to think BEFORE you get behind the wheel. Besides, you should have lost your license, you don't need a car, and your wife can buy one to get to work.
So where is the wife going to get the money for the replacement car, Jerry? If we're talking about a $20,000 car, the family will be out $1000 for the fine and probably a grand or two more for the court fees and lawyers. And they probably are still making payments on the car you want to take away from them, too. Her husband might be in jail and he probably loses his job as well, so half of their income is probably lost, too. And now she has to buy another car, because her husband screwed up? Do you think she'll be able to do that? The fines and jail are punitive enough.
BTW, the fatality rates I posted are per 100,000 people.
Mark, it strikes me that the goal of punishing the perpetrator without making his family suffer is commendable, but impossible. Whether a punishment for a crime is a fine, confiscation of a vehicle, prison, or the comfy chair, the family suffers the absence of the perpetrator and the resources, no?
The flip side here is that, since the family is already guaranteed to suffer from the misbehavior of one of its members, we don't have to design the law to inflict pain on family members, but rather to simply be a punishment appropriate to the offense.
To draw a picture, if DUI costs 13000 lives and lost earnings of a million dollars per life, the 1.5 million DUI convictees ought to share prison terms and fines corresponding to this. It's about half a year in jail and a $10000 fine, BTW.
The flip side here is that, since the family is already guaranteed to suffer from the misbehavior of one of its members, we don't have to design the law to inflict pain on family members, but rather to simply be a punishment appropriate to the offense.
Yes. I understand that the family will suffer. I'm simply arguing there's no reason to add to the suffering and confiscating the family car does precisely that.
I would agree--though quite frankly, a heavy fine for DUI along the lines of what the data suggest would effectively confiscate the family car. No?
And I don't know that this is a bad thing--sure, maybe allow the courts to judge the situation and provide a payback plan or something, but really, hunger can be a wonderful reminder that you've done some foolish things.
The CDC appears to generally cite a paper from 2002 that one of their people co-authored with collaborators from elsewhere, which was a systematic review covering studies of both selective (what we have in the US) and random (what exists in Australia and much of Europe) sobriety checkpoints in terms of efficacy. It covers about 30 (peer reviewed) studies in all, published between 1981 and 1999. Most of these are longitudinal/intervention studies, with a variety of outcomes. There's an attempt to "normalize" to non-alcohol related crashes where possible (to eliminate the influence of general trends in safety, such as safer cars) though I can't really speak with any authority as to how good it is.
They conclude that initiation of checkpoints is associated with between a 5 and 30% decrease in various types of alcohol-related crashes, with an average of around 20%. That's pretty robust.
My main criticism of this type of meta-analysis is that there is no way to factor in the systematic bias against publication of negative results that exists at all levels (this is a problem in pretty much every discipline) so it is safe to assume that this is an overestimate, but impossible to know by how much.
The much cruder, cross-sectional "analysis" (read: about 10 minutes worth of googling and spreadsheeting) I did could be insufficiently powerful to detect small, but significant differences. (In fact, it almost certainly is.) It's also possible that the effect of checkpoints flattens over time (all the intervention studies, by definition, have to include a before and after, and laws don't change that frequently). And it is also possible that with enough time, the impact of sobriety checkpoints on the overall social norms around drinking and driving (which certainly have changed over the same time period) has a secondary positive effect even in jurisdictions that don't have them, and that's why you don't see much of a difference between jurisdictions now. Or all of that.
I think it is safe to assume that checkpoints don't make DUI worse. They are probably beneficial, but the magnitude of that effect is debatable. And that makes weighing the benefits against the various costs (including "mission creep") absolutely a conversation worth having.
I think it is safe to assume that checkpoints don't make DUI worse. They are probably beneficial, but the magnitude of that effect is debatable. And that makes weighing the benefits against the various costs (including "mission creep") absolutely a conversation worth having.
Precisely, Brian. Thanks for the analysis!
I would agree--though quite frankly, a heavy fine for DUI along the lines of what the data suggest would effectively confiscate the family car. No?
Depends on the case. According to what I can find, a first time offender in Minnesota would be looking at a $1000 fine, not $10,000. A grand is a big hit but most people can handle it. I'm not sure where the fine is $10,000.
I'm pretty sure it's almost all but loss of car in most states, actually. First, the poor don't have much assets to start with--liberal sources indicate that the Waltons (of Wal-Mart, not TV) have as much wealth as the bottom quintile. So $1000 hits them pretty darned hard--it's the value of their car.
Plus, consider that most DUI stops are either solo drivers or groups of drunks. The car will be impounded almost no matter what. Then you've got that net worth issue again.
In other words, for DUI, CA's impound law is irrelevant to the bottom 40% or so, I think. The car is already almost as good as gone.
OK, let's go down that drunken road. I've objected to outright asset forfeiture for all traffic crimes except DUI. So let us suppose for the moment that we do not do car forfeiture (we can still tow it in and send you home in a cab). How do you propose a "reasonable" punishment for the guy with 3 or more cars, that is equally fair for the guy in the clunker and $20 to his name? To me, the "fair" punishment is something so severe that neither one will risk it.
Looked up the stats, and not surprisingly found that DUI convictees are disproportionately young--I would assume living in young peoples' neighborhoods (poorer)--and 50-75% of those with suspended licenses continue to drive. A large portion of convictions are repeat offenses. This explains the location of the stops, IMO.
So if you're trying to design a system to keep people who obviously don't give a rip about the rest of us, what do you do?
Again, impound for tags? No. (though we have it here in MN, BTW) But when drunks keep endangering the rest of us, what do you do?
(source: USDOT)
So if you're trying to design a system to keep people who obviously don't give a rip about the rest of us, what do you do?
You put them in jail, Bubba. The point I'm making is pretty simple, actually. The example I'm using is a person who is sharing the ownership of the vehicle with someone else, generally a spouse. You punish the perpetrator but you don't punish the other person by taking the car away. Impounding the car at the traffic stop itself is, theoretically, temporary, but in some of these schemes the fees to get the car back once it's been impounded are so onerous that it ends up getting forfeited. And then fine comes on top of that. That's where I have a problem. This is not complicated.
OK, so how does having the family breadwinner in jail help the family? How is the jailee supposed to get money to pay the fine, rather than lose his job and get even poorer?
I'm still in favor of trying to prevent the crime of DUI, by making the penalty so steep it doesn't occur. Specifically, I would favor something like lifetime loss of license and forfeiture of your car. Apparently that is NOT the system in Sweden, as I thought, rather it's one year of prison with hard labor. Other nations it is mandatory 1-year suspension, or up to lifetime suspension. And of course there are still a few countries for which the penalty is summary execution, though some put that off until the second offense. Obviously, our penalties are not sufficient to deter the crime. Suggest away.
OK, so how does having the family breadwinner in jail help the family? How is the jailee supposed to get money to pay the fine, rather than lose his job and get even poorer?
If it were an either/or thing, then I'd agree. In too many cases, it's the fine, jail AND the loss of the vehicle, too. And by the way, I'm certainly not signing anyone up for summary execution for drunk driving, either.
We're a long ways away from the original point of the post, which is the idea of impounding and then obtaining vehicles by forfeiture for offenses that are far less serious than DWI. That's still where my objection lies, along with the related point, which is the problem of policing becoming a revenue hunt as a primary focus rather than as a crime fighting job. Can we all agree that impounding vehicles for expired tabs, broken taillights and the like is too much? Can we at least do that?
Sure, if you want to limit the discussion. :-) I'm still struggling a bit with the "traffic enforcement as revenue source" idea, though. How do you tell the difference between appropriate fines to punish/deter lawbreaking and the fact that this produces revenue?
It's a bad thing if a municipality depends on the revenue to make their budget work. In the WaPo article I linked, they made reference to a number of towns that cover a large portion of their budget via traffic fines. You also see towns off of major highways annex a finger of land so they can write tickets, even though their citizens all live miles away. That would be an example.
I think you would be hard pressed to define some number for what is an inappropriately "large" portion of a city budget. I think you would need to drill further down, to see if some police were tasked exclusively with traffic enforcement, whether minor infractions were given large fines, whether enforcement targeted locals or outsiders (some people say the police target out-of-state plates), and whether police are given a "quota" of violations to fill. I'm sure it happens. Tough to prove and even tougher to stop. After all, "the law is the law." Unless you have a suggestion? I have seen people flash lights to warn you (illegal) or even post a sign outside town warning you (probably legal).
After all, "the law is the law."
Well, that's the end of the conversation. We're not going to agree on this one. That's fine.
when the people serve the law, instead of the other way around, something vitally important has been lost.
I don't see how it can be argued that "the law is the law." What you CAN argue is that "the law is not JUSTICE." Justice would require that each individual offense and offender be treated as such, with all the extenuating circumstances involved. It would solve the "speed trap" and "random stop" problem, assuming it were done properly. How you GET to that ideal, I don't know.
Jerry, regarding how to tell appropriate fines from revenue generation, the State of Missouri did just that when they made a law limiting a municipality to having no more than 32% (IRRC) of its operating revenue coming from traffic fines. That's how the notorious Bourbon, MO speedtrap on Hwy. 44 got shut down. Now, whether 32% is a magic number, or how that is arrived at, is another question but at least one state has said this is not acceptable. (Bourbon had extended its city limits past the interstate and then started putting its patrol cars on the highway to collect speeders and fines. There was no community crime prevention involved as the highway bypassed most of the city; it was a cash grab.)
a cash grab manned with cops, who were not drafted into service, but willing enlistees.
in short: not enough unlike the crips.
which brings us to the original problem: why do peeps hate cops.
You have to wonder, indeed, how the 32% number was arrived at. It makes sense it would be less than 50%, but small towns don't have a lot of other sources of revenue – not that this should be one of them.
And unlike some, I don't blame the police for a system created by the town Council and the courts. They're really only doing their jobs as instructed. You want to change the perception created by the speed traps, change the system (as Missouri did) that creates that perception.
In all, it is said that with all the laws on the books today, is it impossible to go through life without breaking at least one law every day. The only reason we don't have an uprising is because the cops and courts exercise a great deal of discretion and, when they don't, we need to change the offending law, demand more discretion, or stop the maladministration of justice altogether where possible. Example: the last I heard it was illegal to serve apple pie in Wisconsin without a slice of cheese. Can you imagine the fines Baker's Square would be paying if this law would be rigidly enforced, like the speeding laws sometimes are?
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